


Speirs and Petra, Toccoa to Foy, 1942–1945

by newredshoes



Series: Easy With Daemons In [6]
Category: Band of Brothers, His Dark Materials - Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Gen, WWII, daemon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-23
Updated: 2010-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/pseuds/newredshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Speirs and Winters are more alike than either might think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speirs and Petra, Toccoa to Foy, 1942–1945

"I would have thought there'd be more," she said, watching Winters and his wolf daemon walk by.

"They're civilian volunteers," said Speirs, keeping his eyes on the Easy lieutenant. "Even if they're paratroops, it's statistically irrelevant. Everybody's here."

Petra craned her neck, the bones cracking. "We don't know her name."

"We know about him," he said. He sat there on the bench in the stifling Georgia heat. Soldiers passed them by but very carefully did not look. "We know he's unimpeachable," he said, after a long silence.

"That makes you nervous?"

Speirs didn't answer her.

* * *

He sought Winters out in the officers' mess. He made a point of introducing himself. Winters shook his hand, and Petra stretched her nose out toward the other wolf. She blinked cautiously, then returned the courtesy.

"And Alma," Winters said. His daemon lifted her chin. Petra stood stock-still.

"I'm looking forward to serving with you," Speirs said, dropping his hand. A fox darted behind Alma's legs; a moment later, Lieutenant Nixon joined them. Something in Alma's bearing relaxed. Speirs nodded to them both and left.

"They're not like us," said Petra as soon as they were outside again.

"We don't know anything," he told her.

* * *

He would always remember the sharp focus he felt those days they were caged at Upottery, stalking perimeters, pouring over sand tables, checking his men. The enemy would encounter them soon. Petra couldn't stop licking her lips.

* * *

It was war. It wasn't a time for mercy, and it wasn't a time for disobedience.

No one questioned him after that.

* * *

Speirs stood there in the dark, taking in Blithe and the little owl staring up from his shoulder, the sleeping Easy sergeant and his badger daemon entrenched in their foxhole, and all he wanted was _movement._

He passed Winters as he made his way down the line. Alma's eyes shone as they approached and said nothing, and Speirs knew they hated sitting as much as he did.

* * *

She welcomed him back to Aldbourne with extravagance. Coming back to her was like coming back to war again: her civet daemon coiled around Petra and raked and bit and consumed. Her house was spare of objects, and they left a wake through it even so. "I'll bring you things," he told her as they lay together after.

"From the Continent?" she asked, eyes gleaming.

He hovered over her open mouth. "From Berlin itself."

She ran her fingers through his hair, twined them through it and pulled him closer.

* * *

Eindhoven was Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel and it wanted to be Jericho, perhaps, but Speirs was pressed tighter on all sides than he was on a stick in a C-47, and the German line was still ahead of them. Petra growled as they pushed through the streets seething with the jubilant Dutch. He was glad when they pressed down Hell's Highway, empty except for panzer tanks and SS: that part of the Bible he knew and could navigate.

* * *

The trick to Bastogne was to understand its stillness. It was a hunting quiet amid all those trees and snow. The teeth of the cold stripped every man to his most basic parts, and even after all they had already seen in war, Speirs and Petra fully now knew their own faces. When the Germans shelled them, they lay pressed to the ground, Speirs watching, Petra scratching the frozen earth and snarling.

Most of the men were digging deep and holding fast, and Speirs loved them for it. He couldn't stay and wait, though: these woods were American territory, and he kept to the perimeter, moving. The Easy medic he passed often, his stubborn bloodhound pressing on with neck bent. Nixon was everywhere, but only rarely spotted: sometimes Speirs saw the delicate tracks his fox daemon left behind.

Every time he reported to Winters, he noted how neat Winters kept himself, and how lean and hollow Alma had grown.

* * *

Even from the treeline he could see Dike's parrot thrashing bright and noisy behind the haystack. Colonel Sink and his hawk daemon only just glared down the observers. Alma was dancing with frustration, eyes wide and teeth bared. When Winters called him over, Petra stood still just long enough to listen.

The assault was clear, strong lines of attack against the open stretch of snow. How the two of them coursed and ran.

* * *

"Dike has been relieved," Winters said, even if it hardly needed saying. "I want you to assume command of Easy."

"Yes, sir," said Speirs, without hesitation.

Winters smiled. "I'll get you set up with First Sergeant Lipton, although if I get my way with Division, he won't stay a sergeant for long. You're free to tell him that."

He nodded. "Sir."

Alma stepped forward, tail wagging. Petra shifted her weight from one foot to another; Alma brushed her shoulder against her, and they looked at each other, eye to level eye.

* * *

The smell of tallow and incense was strange, amid the battle stink of a company of weary men. None of them had seen the underside of a roof for more than a month: Speirs studied them as he crossed the floor, walking the gauntlet between girls' choir and soldiers. They were all sorts: men with birds and men with dogs and men with hares and otters and cats. Lipton sat at the end of the far pew, bent over a crumpled sheet of paper, the stub of a pencil in one hand. His bobcat daemon's ears pricked up; beneath her thick fur, the line of her ribcage showed. Lipton glanced up and got to his feet.

"I've been writing up a roster, sir," he said quietly.

Speirs watched his daemon hop off the bench and approach Petra. "Is it finished?" he asked, turning back to Lipton.

"Almost. I'll be a few more minutes."

"We're not going anywhere yet." He settled down against the deeply polished wood, unable to take his eyes off the Easy men. His men.

"Glad to have you with us, sir," said Lipton, still running over his list. "They're used to having a commander like you."

Petra looked up at him from where she sat. "Good to know," Speirs said, and took in all their faces.

**Author's Note:**

> The characterization of Speirs' Aldbourne woman is totally cribbed from [](http://falseeeyelashes.livejournal.com/profile)[**falseeeyelashes**](http://falseeeyelashes.livejournal.com/)'s brilliant character piece [The Green Grass Stretches](http://falseeeyelashes.livejournal.com/149476.html), which everyone should read, because _oh my God, **Speirs**._


End file.
